Mer's getting baptized this week!

Hola!

Sister Pazmino and I had a really great week! We were able to contact more people about the Easter Pageant and are so excited to go see it this week! We have someone lined up to go with us every night it's going on this week! It'll be a really good experience. 

Mer had her baptismal interview and will be baptized this Saturday! She is so excited and I'm so happy for her! The ward has been such a great support and we hope that her baptism will be well attended this weekend. 

Cindy is doing pretty well. She still is having some struggles with her nicotine addiction. She's made leaps and bounds of progress but still needs to completely quit. I have faith she'll be able to and know she does too! 

We taught Travis this week about prayer. It was a really, really good lesson. I love testifying and sharing experiences that God truly does answer our prayers. It's so important for our investigators to know and to experience for themselves especially as they study the Book of Mormon. I know that anyone who does will receive an answer that it is true! 

This week we were able to teach the Restoration on the street and give out some copies of the Book of Mormon and I'm so grateful that the Lord puts people in our path that are willing to listen! 

Today we had a lot of fun at the Colorado Rockies/Milwaukee Brewers game!! 

Have a great week everybody! Sisters- enjoy the women's broadcast! I'm looking forward to it :)

Love,

Sister Richards

we were able to go to the gilbert temple for hannah's endowment. It is sooo beautiful!

​some really nice people.... I definitely didn't knock on this door

​This week we enjoyed some more mangos with Cindy

​Rockies/Brewers game!! 

Can't believe I will be home a year from now!

Hey everyone! 

SO much happened this week! We have had so many referrals that we've needed to contact and this week we contacted them all! Which was such a miracle. Usually we have to attempt to contact them multiple times but this week everyone was home first try! Not everyone was interested but we were able to talk with everyone we saw in the complexes we were at and we found a few potentials!!! One referral we received only had the apt complex address and no apt # so Sister Pazmino and I put up Easter Pageant flyers on every door (~40) with sticky notes that we had written a message and our number on. It was a lot of work to try to contact this referral but we did! Within a few hours the person we were trying to contact called us! The Easter Pageant is a production that the Mesa Visitor's Center puts on every year. They have over 300 people involved in this play of the life of Jesus Christ. Every day we pass out these flyers like candy and we've had a lot of success doing so! 

We had some really great lessons this week. We always want to have members at every lesson possible and it's been hard to find members for our new ward because we haven't met that many yet! So we talked to a sister in the ward to see if she could refer us to some people who would be good fellowshippers to our investigators. She was spot on! Our lessons were so powerful because of the members that we had with us. One member is returning to activity and just got her temple recommend back after many years of not being to the temple. We didn't even know she was inactive for a long time or any of this until we met her at the lesson. And the lesson we were teaching was about temples! It was so good. I'm so grateful for the members in our wards and know that we need them to be successful in our work! 

This week we had a temple trip to the Mesa temple! It was so good!  :) I love going to the temple. 

The whole time I've been in Mesa I've been trying to find this guy that bikes around with a cart selling corn with chili powder, snocones and mangos also with chili powder and this week Sister Pazmino and I found one! I wasn't brave enough to put chili powder on my mango but he sprayed lemon juice and sprinkled salt on it and it was so good!!! Mexicans put lemon on everything... 

We also went to the Phoenix zoo today with one of our members! It was so much fun! We rode on a camel and fed a giraffe! Feeding the giraffe was definitely my favorite part! :) 

Also, one last thing. We had stake conference yesterday and it was so so good! The messages were so powerful and really touched me personally and were exactly what I needed. President Sweeney spoke and called Sister Pazmino and I out of the congregation to bear our testimonies and share why we decided to serve a mission. It definitely was a little nerve racking for us since we didn't have really any prior notice! 

I'm so grateful for my testimony and the opportunity I have to share it with others and to grow so much as I do so! I love this work <3

Have a great week! 

Sister Richards

Hey everybody! 

Last preparation day we went to Riverview park and played Cricket with our zone! It was so much fun! Brother Waters from our Riverview ward is a real Englishman from Norwich, England and we had such a blast learning how to play from him! 

Another transfer has already come and gone! Sister Lyons was transferred to Snowflake where it's snowing! I'm staying here and training a new missionary again. We will now be covering the YSA, Riverview and Mesa 5th ward! It's going to be crazy doing what we call "whitewashing" a third ward! I'm super excited though for another transfer here. I love this area! My new companion is Hermana Pazmino. She's a native Spanish speaker and was called spanish speaking but her first area is English work! So that's a little different but we'll definitely be able to use her Spanish and hopefully I can learn some from her! 

This past week Sister Lyons and I went with the Mesa 5th ward Elders to their teaching appointments so I could meet the people they're working with and the transition would be smoother. We certainly have a lot of work to do and Sister Pazmino and I are super excited! 

One miracle that happened this week was that Benjamin (the golden investigator, Jabari fan from months ago) gave me his address! I sent his info into the referral system and he said he had been contacted by the local missionaries and was meeting with them! I am so happy! It made me so sad that he moved away to Wisconsin but I'm super glad he has contact with missionaries again! 

I'm super excited for this next transfer and know it will be great! Thank you all for your love and support! I love everyday as a missionary :) I know that the Gospel is the greatest gift we can give and it makes me so happy!

Have a good week! 

Sister Richards

Happy Valentine's Day

Hope everyone had a great week! 

Our week started out really good, we had exchanges with our Sister Training Leaders. Exchanges are always a fun learning opportunity! I was able to go into Sister Cole's area and bike for the day and that's always really fun because on bike you can talk to so many people. While biking to and from one appt we received contact info for 3 potentials! 

We had great lessons with two families that we're working with and Mer's lessons are really good. She is so sweet! Her prayers are so thoughtful and we love teaching her so much! Tonight we're going to have FHE with her at a member's home and we're excited for that. 

Two of our investigators that disappeared came back this week... That's just what happens in YSA... addictions.. evictions... fun stuff! 

Ryan is doing really well though. He came to FHE last week and we had a great lesson about the Plan of Salvation. He was in a really bad car accident so the Resurrection is really meaningful to him. We don't know why but he didn't make it to church yesterday. 

Sister Lyons has been really sick :/ We were stuck inside the apt the last three days. Keep her in your prayers! This is her second really bad sinus infection in the last couple months. We're hoping she can figure something out next week when we see the ENT! I watched the District a lot the past few days and yeah it's hard not to be able to work! I hope my companion can get feeling better.

Hope you all have a great week! 

Love, 

Sister Richards